INTERCONNECTS

The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) has received $6 million from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a supercomputing center in Springfield, Ohio. OSC will work closely with the DOE, the Department of Defense (DoD) center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and other local agencies to provide a high performance computing presence in southwestern Ohio. “This is a wonderful opportunity for OSC, Clark County, and the Turner Foundation to work together to enhance the nation’s computational capabilities, provide high-tech training opportunities, and accelerate job growth in the State of Ohio,” said Stan Ahalt, OSC Executive Director. OSC’s plans for Springfield’s PrimeOhio Corporate Park include establishing a satellite operation that focuses on data management and mining as well as remote data mirroring across high performance networks. An important secondary mission of the center will be to support multi-agency cooperation on critical areas of scientific computing. Congressman David Hobson (R-Springfield) worked with the Turner Foundation, a nonprofit economic development organization that supports Clark County, to start the Springfield Research Park. "With this new supercomputing center and the new Lexis-Nexis data center, we are moving forward to make Springfield part of an emerging high technology corridor linking Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati," Hobson said. "This is another great example of the partnerships that can be forged between communities and businesses to bring modernization and economic growth. It is vitally important that the United States stay at the forefront of emerging technologies. This new center will help Springfield and the Miami Valley play an important role in this crucial effort." The Center will focus on specific scientific applications that include both data- and computation-intensive computing such as large-scale data mining, regional and global climate modeling, materials science and nanomaterials, bioinformatics, and high-energy physics. “This center offers the perfect complement to our ongoing DoD computing efforts, and it makes an important contribution to the Dayton-Columbus technology corridor,” said Dr. Dick Pritchard, OSC Director of Federal Programs. OSC will place a satellite operation at the Park that includes supercomputing capabilities and staff, Third Frontier Network (TFN) connectivity, and an advanced high-speed statewide data network. OSC will be the second key player in the PrimeOhio Corporate Park. Lexis-Nexis, the Miami Township-based database and information company that provides legal, news, public records and business information, broke ground last month on a 60,000-square-foot center on 40 acres in the Park to be used as back-up, storage and research space.